Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“I’m probably going to need toothpaste, right? Everyone needs toothpaste. It’ll have to go in my checked baggage, but what a small price that would be compared to if I didn’t have toothpaste. Maybe I’ll ship it to myself? Either way, I’m really going to need-”

“Dude,” Stan says. Kyle looks up from his suitcase curiously, and the expression on Stan’s face fades from a look of irritation to one of softness. “There will be drugstores in Philly. Buy the toothpaste there.”

“What if they don’t have the brand I like?”

“Colgate?” Kenny asks loudly. He has long ago abandoned any pretense of helping Kyle pack and is now just laying down on his back in the middle of the floor. He pushes himself up and looks at Stan seriously. “What do you think, Stan? Do you think they might sell Colgate-brand toothpaste outside of South Park?”

Stan gives Kenny a stern look. “I think it’s only natural that Kyle feel a little stressed before he moves to a whole new state.”

“I think that people coming to South Park might bring their own Colgate because they think we won’t have it,” Heidi answers as if Stan never responded.

Kyle throws down a shirt and says, in a voice that is no more and no less high pitched than he wanted it to be, “I have to go buy some toothpaste!”

“Okay, I’ll come, too!” Stan says eagerly, starting to follow Kyle out the door, but Kyle blocks the exit with his arm.

“I know you all think I’m having a meltdown!” Kyle yells before slamming the door to his room. He pauses on the other side of the door and curses himself for forgetting to include a snappy twist on his exiting line. He tries to think of something fast and settles for shouting, “But I’m not!” through the door.

Alone in the hallway, Kyle is acutely aware that he is, in fact, having a meltdown. He waits for a few seconds before whispers start up again on the other side of the door and bangs on it one final time for good measure before marching down the stairs.

There’s an eTicket on his Samsung Galaxy for a flight departing tomorrow night from Denver to Philadelphia, and Kyle is doing everything possible to keep from thinking about it. It seems surreal now that he spent his whole summer looking through course catalogues and faculty listings with genuine excitement, when clearly leaving for college is the worst thing that has happened to him in at least three months.

He’s not entirely sure why this is so upsetting. Stan is going to leave a few days after him, and Kenny and Heidi are driving out east at the end of August, so it’s not like his friends would be here even if he stayed. He’s going to miss Ike a lot, but this will probably incentivize the kid to figure out teleportation before Elon Musk can. He said about as much to Ike, but Ike just looked sad and told him that “Elon needs this win for himself.”

Kyle doesn’t even know when his other classmates are leaving. He thinks he remembers hearing Kenny say something about Craig taking a cross-country road trip to Wesleyan a few weeks ago, and Nichole has spent the summer doing research on Tulane’s campus, but those people are just the peripherals. He hopes he has more respect for his peers at college; Kyle is concerned that the “Ivy League” title might just mean “just as stupid as everyone else, but a whole lot richer.” If the class Facebook page is any way to judge, that does appear to be the case.

The car that he shares with Ike isn’t in the driveway, so Ike is probably already at his job at the movie theater (which he chose over prestigious internship offers from NOAA and the EPA, thereby breaking his parents’ hearts forevermore). Kyle fishes around for the spare keys to Gerald’s car, which he hasn’t reclaimed since moving out shortly after graduation. The radio is still set to the “old music that doesn’t make you look like a hipster” station, and Kyle nods along to the last chorus of Boston’s More Than a Feeling.

“You’re listening to Old White FM,” the DJ announces in a deep voice. “South Park’s third most popular station for old white men.” A chorus of women singing “O.W.F.M.” follows, and Kyle winces as the first few chords of Carry on Wayward Son fills the car.

He rolls down all the windows of the car, allowing the bridge and chorus to explode out of his windows onto the street. Kyle isn’t really paying attention to his surroundings as he sings along under his breath, “And though I claimed to be a wise man – something, something – I don’t kno-o-ow.”

“Once I rose above the noise and confus-“

The line catches in Kyle’s throat as a rock hits the bumper of his car, and a familiar voice shouts “Fag!” from the street. “Turn down your hippie music!”

Another rock comes flying through his open window to hit him in a shoulder, and an even more familiar voice shouts, “Shit, dude, I think that’s my dad’s car!”

There’s a silence while Kansas continues to blare from the speakers, then two more rocks hit the car in perfect synchronization. Kyle slams on the breaks, jerking to a stop in front of a grassy hill where, just as he expected, Ike and Cartman are hanging out with a cooler of beers and pile of rocks.

“You damn kids!” Kyle yells, unfastening his seatbelt and jogging over to tower over the two of them. “What the fuck, Ike? Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”

Ike shrugs. “I can do whatever I want. They promoted me to VP of international marketing in two months.”

“Did they really?” Kyle asks, undeniably impressed.

Ike makes a face at him. “Of course they didn’t. I’m thirteen. You all give me way too much credit. I just skipped work to get drunk with the Cartmanager before he leaves our arid yet also infertile lands.”

Kyle shoots Cartman a dirty look, and he raises his hands up innocently. “I didn’t come up with the nickname.”

“Good. It sucks.” Kyle extends a hand to help up Ike. “I’ll give you a ride to work.”

Ike eyes his hand speculatively and shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good with what I’m doing here. These are the memories I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.”

“’The rest of your life?’ Cartman’s not even your friend, Ike!”

Ike smirks at him and says, “More mine than yours.” He pounds his chest twice and points at Cartman, “Plus, Cartman’s my boy. We’ve been hanging out all summer.”

Kyle is taken aback. “What? Actually?”

Ike nods. “We tried to breed some more pigmen together. It didn’t work, but we bonded hard along the way.”

“The beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Cartman agrees.

Ike holds up his beer to him as a toast. “A beautiful friendship and a fruitful partnership.”

Kyle wrinkles his nose. “Partners?”

“Not that kind of partner,” Ike assures him. “No need to get jealous.” He slings an arm around Cartman’s shoulders amicably and beams up at Kyle. “Would you invest in our start-up? Look at these faces! Would you?”

“No, Ike,” Kyle snaps, grabbing his brother’s wrist and jerking him stumbling to his feet. “I’m bringing you to work.”

Ike struggles to pull his arm away from Kyle’s grip, but Kyle just tightens his hold until Ike gives up the fight. “You can’t take me to work. I’m drunk; I’ll get fired. Also, I’ve skipped the past week, so if I go back, I’m going to be fired.”

“So basically you’re fired?”

Ike shrugs. “Not if I ignore all their calls and emails and never go back to that specific theater.”

Kyle thinks he’s suffered enough in this lifetime to understand what parents mean when they talk about raising rowdy children. Only Ike could be so gifted and motivated yet still be the family’s lazy fuckup.

“It’s the only theater in South Park,” Kyle says tiredly. “Look. Let’s just go apologize to your boss. Make up some sob story about a family tragedy and get in the car.”

Ike strokes his chin thoughtfully with his free hand even as Kyle opens the door to the passenger seat and pushes him inside. “A family sob story… Let me think. How could I ever make up something negative about my loving family?” He shoots Cartman a mean grin, which Cartman returns with gusto.

“What about…” Cartman says slowly, pretending to think. “Okay. Here’s my pitch: Your dad left the family after a screaming blow-out fight with your mom and older brother right after your brother called him out for cyber bullying people into suicide during his valedictorian speech and is currently living in a Motel 69 with a prostitute that he hired as his personal assistant? Bonus points if he banged your brother up a little before he left.”

Kyle’s grip on Ike loosens as his hand twitches in response, and Ike takes the opportunity to roll out of the passenger seat onto the grass and crawl back towards the beer cooler. “That doesn’t make much sense. I think I’ll just say he died,” he says happily, and Cartman tosses him another beer.

“See, Jew?” Cartman asks smugly. “We’ve got it handled.”

He and Ike clink their cans together, and Kyle smacks the beer out of Ike’s hand furiously. “You told Cartman about what happened?”

“You’re really having a hard time understanding this, Ky: Cartman and I are friends.” Ike pushes Kyle lightly such that he topples from his squat down onto the grass. “Now. I’m going to open another beer, and if you smack it- “

Kyle reaches out quickly to grab the new beer from Ike’s hand. He tries to chug it all in one go but ends up coughing and sputtering around a third of the way through. Ike and Cartman watch silently as Kyle doubles over to spit up some foaming beer onto the ground. When he resurfaces, he wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve and glares at the two of them, daring someone to make a crack about his blooper.

They exchange a long, knowing look, then Ike grabs his own beer and takes a gulp. “Not a strong look on you, bro.”

Kyle is still struggling to catch his breath, but he forces out, “Do not underestimate how mad at you I am.”

“I never did,” Cartman says, and Kyle flips him off.

Everyone falls silent as if they all expect someone else to speak up first. Eventually, Kyle rearranges himself into a more comfortable, cross-legged position and takes a small sip of his beer. Ike holds up his drink to him, and Kyle glares at him until they revert back to quiet drinking.

He wonders what he would have done with the knowledge that Ike and Cartman were friends this whole summer. It wouldn’t really have changed anything. It certainly wouldn’t have made him and Cartman friends. Besides a few awkward sentences exchanged after graduation, they haven’t interacted since Kyle tried to bait him into hooking up with “Heidi,” and Kyle is pretty sure that Cartman is still mad. The anger is probably the only reason he’s still able to talk with Kyle right there.

That doesn’t matter, because Kyle is still mad too. He can’t exactly remember what he was mad about, but he’s sure there’s something. Maybe he can blame him for getting Ike fired from his job at the movie theater? That’s definitely Cartman’s fault.

His mind made up, Kyle glares at Cartman, who looks very confused for a second before he shrugs and sends back an absolutely disgusting hand gesture.

“Yo, C-Dawg,” Ike says conversationally. “You listen to the new Flatbush Zombies album yet?”

Cartman stares at Kyle for another few seconds, which leaves Kyle feeling annoyed and inexplicably flustered, before glancing back at Ike and saying, “Nah, they’re on some heavy shit. I don’t fuck with hippies.”

“One day we’re gonna take a lot of acid, and your mind is going to open, bro,” Ike tells him. “It’s a great album.”

“LSD is for hippies.”

Ike grins and shakes his head. “I can see it. You’re going to trip once and be reborn as some free-love Dead Head who listens to, like, Tame Impala.”

Both Kyle and Cartman groan loudly, and Ike snickers. “They’re probably the most respected rock band of our generation.”

“If you call that rock,” Kyle sneers, while Cartman just hums some airy and slightly disconnected melody that could easily be a real Tame Impala song that Kyle just doesn’t recognize because, honestly, he really only listened to two or three songs before he made up his mind. It was enough to get it.

“I’m boring and on drugs,” Cartman sings to the tune he made up. “I’m so bored, so I’ll do more drugs. I’m so boring, so my audience does drugs. Am I the entertainer or the entertained? No one in the crowd – “

“Dude,” Ike says, and Cartman stops. “You don’t need to shit on things just because they’re not your personal taste.”

“No, I do,” Cartman says, and Kyle nods.

“People who like Tame Impala need people like us there to be like, ‘Really? You sure about that?’” Kyle says.

“That’s why they call me Kyle ‘Justify That Opinion’ Broflovski,” Ike says in a mocking yet startlingly accurate impression of Kyle’s own voice.

“Kyle ‘Show Me Your Sources’ Broflovski,” Cartman agrees, in a mocking impression of a stereotypically Jewish voice.

“Cartman, we were on the same team!” Kyle protests loudly. He can’t pinpoint the exact moment in which he’s pulled out of his head and into the bullshit in front of him, but he’s for sure getting swept away in the conversation against all his best intentions.

“Kyle ‘All Your Sources Have a Clear Liberal Bias’ Broflovski,” Cartman continues, and Ike high fives him.

“Kyle ‘I Read the Journal Every Morning’ Broflovski.”

“Kyle ‘Think Tanks Are the Only Real Form of News’ Broflovski.”

“Kyle ‘The New York Times is…’ Fuck, shit, I’m out,” Ike says, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Cartman, take it home.”

After an extended drumroll courtesy of Ike, Cartman announces, in his own speaking voice, “But I don’t like Kyle ‘Justify That Opinion’ Broflovski. I just like Kyle, and that’s all.”

The excitement fades from Ike’s face, and his hands flop down at his sides. “Wait. I didn’t actually get that one.”

Kyle, on the other hand, is completely taken aback. He gapes at Cartman for longer than he would care to admit before catching himself. “I don’t understand your Junie B. Jones reference,” he says harshly. “And I’m out of here.”

Kyle pushes himself to his feet, willing himself not to look at Cartman for long enough to gauge his reaction. He throws up a salute and says, “I’ll see you at home, Ike,” before giving Cartman a perfunctory nod.

The short look in his direction is enough to see the expression of bewilderment and annoyance on Cartman’s face. Kyle didn’t care what his reaction would be, but he definitely did not want it to be this.

Is it annoying to him that Kyle doesn’t give a shit about their “inside jokes” or whatever the fuck that was? Is this whole thing just some huge bother to Cartman, who suddenly just wants everyone to be chill and hang out? Fuck that. Kyle is the only one who gets to decide when he will or will not be chill, and Cartman has no right being bitter about that.

Kyle debates doubling back to full-on rage at Cartman, but he’s already walking back towards the car, and he has a little more pride than would allow him to show his little brother exactly how irrationally he acts whenever Eric Cartman is in the same room. Kyle climbs back inside and twists his key in the ignition, and the radio starts again at full volume, blasting Heat of the Moment by Asia like there was an explosive rigged in the car.

“You know you can change the radio station, right?” Ike calls to him. “The ghost of Gerald Broflovski isn’t going to float out of the radio like, ‘Who turned off my old white man music!’ Play some fucking Action Bronson or something.”

“Maybe I like this song,” Kyle yells back before pulling the door shut with a bang.

He doesn’t actually like this song. It just reminds him of Cartman being a total bullshit artist conning Congress into letting him use stem cells to build a pizza joint. Or maybe that time had something to do with life support? It’s all a little hazy at this point. Kyle wasn’t even aware that he knew the words to the song until he slows down at the next intersection and realizes he’s been singing along in a nasally, prepubescent voice (very distinct from his own raspy voice that has been with him from childhood straight through to the cusp of adulthood) for the entire two minutes remaining of the song.

Kyle glares at the radio for a few seconds and, with a loud groan for no one’s benefit but his own, switches the music to an Action Bronson Pandora station.

He slows down in front of the parking lot for the Stop ‘N Shop, once again debating the merits of buying his toiletries before flying out to Pennsylvania, before he decides that it’s stupid to pack things he can easily buy at any CVS. Like, honestly, what was he thinking? Of course they’ll have Colgate. It’s not like this one tube of toothpaste would last him the whole semester anyway.

As he starts to back out of his parking spot, he decides better of it, and races inside to buy a two-pack of Colgate whitening toothpaste before closing.

The house is empty when Kyle gets back from his errands, and he takes what might be his last (although more likely second-to-last) shower before being shipped all the way across the US of A. He weighs his bottle of shampoo in his hand, deciding if it’s worth it to pack this too, before he forces himself to set it back down.

His door is slightly ajar when he pads back down the hallway to his room. This may not seem like an especially notable detail considering Kyle left his room fifteen minutes ago, but he’s perfected this showering routine, and leaving his door open has never been a part of it. The door to Kyle’s room is never open. That’s part of what being eighteen is.

He pushes the door open slowly and, sure enough, there’s a massive figure lying down on his bed.

“Cartman?” Kyle demands, clutching the towel tighter around his waist. “Come the fuck on, dude. Get out of my room.”

Cartman sits up and looks him over slowly. “I forgot your showers last like fifty years. There are people in Cape Town who need that water, Kahl.”

“There are people everywhere who need this water,” Kyle snaps. “Seriously, dude, what the fuck? I just showered.”

“Having ‘just showered’ is your most notable trait. Actually, scratch that, it’s the hair. Or the religion, I guess.”

“’The religion,’” Kyle repeats disbelievingly. “What are you even doing here?”

“Here?” Cartman looks around as if he’s surprised to have found himself in Kyle’s room. “I think it’s pretty obvious, Jew. I’m giving us closure.”

“’Closure?’” Kyle repeats again, wondering if this is how the whole conversation is going to go. “What do I need closure on?”

Cartman gives him a knowing look, and Kyle scoffs. “It’s been months, dude. Time to drop it.”

“You can repress your feelings, Kyle, but you can’t repress the truth.”

“First of all, yes, I can. Second, there’s nothing to repress.” He yanks open a drawer of his dresser with excessive force and pulls it straight out from the dresser, spilling boxers and socks on the floor. Kyle kneels down and shoves them back into the drawer with shaking hands before standing up and pulling on fresh underwear.

Cartman observes his routine with mild interest, watching as he shuffles through a drawer of t-shirts from different concerts and teams that he only wears to bed. He settles for an old Debate shirt with his last name on the back of it like a sports jersey and tugs it on over his head, leaving a huge wet spot on the collar where his hair touched the fabric. He runs a hand through his curls with difficulty, causing more droplets of water to spill down the back of his shirt, and Cartman mocks, “My, Kyle. You must change out of those wet clothes. You’ll catch a cold.”

“Fuck off.”

“You forgot to put the drawer back,” Cartman says helpfully as Kyle turns away from the dresser. Kyle shoots him a dirty look and crouches down to push the drawer back into the dresser.

When Kyle moves away again, Cartman pipes up, “Also, you might want to put on sweatpants. This wouldn’t be the first time your mom caught you half-naked with me.”

Kyle freezes for a second then breathes out through his teeth. “Okay, I get it. You’re trying to bait me.”

“Are you taking anger management classes or something? Normally, it would’ve worked by now.”

“No, it’s just tough to give a shit when I’m leaving this whole fucking state tomorrow. And you with it. By the way.” He takes a seat on his desk chair because he’ll be fucked before he sits on the bed with Cartman already on it. Elbows propped on his knees, he looks Cartman over thoughtfully. “We’ve been given an out. Just take it, man.”

Cartman nods slowly. “So you think you’re going to be a whole new person once you get to school. That makes sense. You won’t be, but I get why you think that.”

Kyle glares at him. “I didn’t say ‘a whole new person.’ I’m going to be the same person, but you won’t be there to fuck everything up for me.”

“I fucked everything up for you?” Cartman asks. “I do love revisionist history.”

“I know. I remember the essay you submitted during Black History Month.”

“They wanted to come work in America, Kyle. They sold each other into slavery, too!”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t because- Okay, yeah, whatever. Try turning that essay in next year. See what people say.” Cartman doesn’t say anything in response, and Kyle smiles widely. “Or are you the one who’s trying to be a whole new person next year?”

“Well, I’m not going to go around with business cards that say, ‘Hi, I’m Eric Cartman, and these are the reasons why you should hate me!’”

“Joke's on you. That’s not what business cards sound like at all. It would be like ‘Eric Cartman: Racist,’ and then your email and phone number.”

“Joke's on you, Kyle. I know exactly what business cards look like. I watch American Psycho on my birthday every year.”

“’There’s no such thing as funny women,’” Kyle attempts to quote poorly.

Cartman frowns at him. “’There are no girls with good personalities,’” he corrects in a deep, raspy voice, fairly similar to his Batman impression.

Kyle stares at him studiously for a moment then gets up to grab a pair of gray sweatpants from his dresser. Cartman grins at him knowingly when he sits back down on the chair like he can tell exactly what Kyle is thinking. He can’t, though. Cartman doesn’t understand shit about who Kyle is, and if he wants to lie to himself and pretends he sees things that aren’t there, that’s his call. The people who matter know the truth, and Cartman is not one of them.

“Okay,” Kyle sighs in resignation. “What do I need to do to get you out of here?”

“Answer me my riddles three,” Cartman says lightly.

Kyle holds up two fingers. “You get two.”

“Do you have the human ability to hear an offer and not haggle?”

Kyle extends his hand to push the fingers into Cartman’s face. “Two.”

“Alright, Jew. Why’d you try to embarrass me in your graduation speech?”

Kyle is taken aback. “All I did was address you?”

“You said I ate Fluffy’s babies!”

“Didn’t you?”

“You know I didn’t.”

“All I did was make a joke. Is that really one of your riddles?”

“It really, really is.”

Kyle leans back and gives an over-the-top eye roll. “I don’t know, Cartman. I was just trying to write a speech that captured what it was like to grow up here. It’s pretty hard to do that without shitting on you a little bit.”

“Expand on that.”

“Who are you? My therapist?”

Cartman’s eyes widen, and Kyle catches himself. “I mean: You sound like a therapist.”

Cartman nods slowly. “That’s good news. Hypothetically.”

“Fuck yourself.”

“Is that how you managed to whittle down your shower time to a tight fifteen?”

“We’re not discussing this.”

Cartman smiles like he knows Kyle is caught. “Then answer my question.”

“What the fuck do you want me to say, Cartman? You were my South Park experience? You made yourself unavoidable from day one, and of course I referenced you in my graduation speech, because I literally cannot imagine what my life would have turned into if you weren’t there. I do think it would’ve been pretty good, though.”

Cartman nods. “What do you think your life would have been like if I weren’t there?”

“Is that your second question?” Kyle asks, slightly taken aback. He had been expecting something simple like ‘why’d you kiss me?’ that he could easily answer with a plea of temporary insanity. 

“Yup. You’re halfway through.”

Kyle closes his eyes. What would his life have been like without Cartman there?

“I think that I would have hung out with Stan and Kenny and studied. We probably would’ve tried to make a shitty garage band named something stupid like Grapefruit and Hashbrowns or Polar Spice Cap, and Kenny would have accidentally whored himself out to some dude that was never actually going to give us a record deal. We’d lose all our $62.39 in some dumb scheme and decide that being in a rock band is fucking gay anyway, and I would’ve gone back to debate and basketball and never felt like I’d missed out that much.”

Cartman snorts loudly, and Kyle scowls. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, still smiling. “You just really believe that you’re this normal little boy who somehow got entangled in Eric Cartman’s hijinks. It’s hilarious.”

“Stan, Kenny, and I were not the ones who got probed by aliens.”

“No, but your little brother was the one who got abducted by them! You think all that shit would have gone away if I hadn’t been there?”

“Yeah, Cartman, if you want to waste my time discussing hypotheticals, I do. I think a cloud of crazy bullshit follows you wherever you go, and I think that you feed into it. Because of you, I have literally no conception of what a normal childhood would have been like, and now I have to go off to a sea of ten thousand strangers, all of whom probably grew up thinking aliens and Imaginationland and Sally Struthers were all make believe.”

“To be fair, they’ve probably never even heard of Imaginationland. Or Sally Struthers.”

“Exactly, Cartman. Exactly.”

“So you’re afraid all those boring little Ivy twinks are going to think you’re weird?”

“Clinically insane, more accurately.”

“Well.”

“Don’t fucking say it.”

Cartman smiles sweetly and says, “I’ll let you work that out in therapy.”

“Shut the fuck up, dude. You should be in therapy.”

Cartman makes a face at him. “I obviously am. I haven’t killed anyone in like ten years. You think that happens by chance?”

“Oh,” Kyle says. “Cool.”

“Yup.”

They size each other up for a moment or two before Kyle says, “Okay, so have I answered your stupid riddles?”

“Perfectly,” Cartman says cheerfully, hopping off the bed like it’s really going to be that easy to get him to leave the room. “One last thing, though: Who would you have used as a lightning rod for all your anger? Y’know, cuz it obviously can’t just be your fault, can it?”

“That’s not what I do.”

“Of course not. Have a great semester, Kyle.”

Cartman opens the door and slips out into the hall. Kyle is relieved for one beautiful second, then adrenaline takes control, and he practically sprints out into the hall, where Cartman has already started to descend the stairs at his biologically-mandated leisurely pace.

“I thought you were going to ask about – “ Kyle blurts out, quickly falling silent under Cartman’s thoughtful expression.

“Well, you only gave me two riddles.”

“You can have a third,” Kyle concedes uncomfortably.

Cartman’s eyebrows shoot up, and he slowly walks back up the stairs to face Kyle directly. “I don’t need a third, Kyle. This isn’t about us anymore. This is only about you now. If, however, you happen to need closure, I’ll let you ask a question.”

He’s looking at Kyle like he’s got him totally caught, and it makes Kyle feel itchy. He should just tell Cartman it doesn’t matter and go back to his room. He should most certainly not ask why Cartman never tried to speak to him after he and Heidi switched back. There’s really no good question that he could possibly ask, so he might as well just leave well enough alone.

“Are you going to be okay?”

The question clearly surprises Cartman. For the first time that night, he looks noticeably angry, but his expression turns mild again as soon as Kyle notices the change. “Of course I am. Everything is better when you’re not there.”

 With that, he leaves, and Kyle is left standing alone in the middle of his hallway. He hears Cartman exchange a few words with someone before leaving, probably Ike, and then the front door opens and closes.

Kyle yells, “Ike, don’t let Cartman in my room again!” before he disappears back inside to pack for his flight.

*

Heidi calls Kenny as soon as she hangs up on her parents. She’s close to hyperventilating every second that he doesn’t pick up, but he answers on the third ring, and she breathes out a shaking sigh of relief.

Kenny must already be able to sense that something is horribly wrong, because she can hear the worry in his voice as he asks, “You okay, babe?”

“Something horrible happened,” she hiccups out.

The other line goes silent for a second, then Kenny says, “Okay, I’m in Kyle’s room. Should I go somewhere private?”

Heidi nods, then realizes Kenny can’t see her and says, “Yes, please.”

“Gotcha.” Kenny must put a hand over the mouthpiece because she can hear with almost perfect clarity, “Dude, you gotta leave. I need to talk to Heidi.”

“What the fuck? This is my dorm, Kenny.”

“I need the space, man.”

“Take a lap,” a different voice says. “And don’t come back til you get a better ratio.”

A few boys laugh, and Kenny says, “Come on, homies. My girlfriend’s upset.”

“Kenny, you can’t kick me, my roommate, and our friends out of our own dorm. Just go into one of the lounges.”

“You guys are all dicks!”

Heidi hears the sound of feet walking and a few doors opening and shutting, then Kenny says, “Okay, I’ve found a space.”

Heidi sniffles pathetically and asks, “How is Kyle?”

“Raging about some racist asshole in his Science and War class. What else is new?”

“Liane’s dead,” Heidi bursts out.

Kenny is quiet for a very long time, then he asks, “Liane Cartman?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck, dude. Do you know what happened?”

“Driving under the influence of something, according to my parents.”

Kenny breathes out in a short puff. “Shit. You spoken to Cartman?”

“I called you as soon as I hung up.”

“Right,” Kenny says. “This sucks.”

“So bad.”

“Do you know when the funeral is?”

“Next Tuesday.”

“You goin’?”

“I think I have to.”

“Should I come?”

“I don’t think you have to,” Heidi says awkwardly. Kenny was undoubtedly the closest of the three boys to Eric, but he’s also the one who’s currently dating his girlfriend of eight years, and there’s no way he could afford a spur-of-the-moment plane trip to Colorado or take enough time off to drive back to South Park. “I’ll call Wendy, though. You should talk to Stan.”

“Anyone else?”

Heidi is quiet, wishing they were in person so they could just have one of their silent eye-contact conversations. “Just Stan.”

“I have to tell Kyle what happened.”

“Do you?”

Kenny sighs. “Yeah, Heidi, I do. He’ll care.”

“He’ll just show up and try to make the whole thing about him.”

“Is that worse than no one who cares about Cartman showing up?”

“I’ll be there. And Stan and Wendy, hopefully. I’ll shoot Butters a message on Facebook.”

Kenny exhales again, and she can almost see him tiredly rubbing his eyes with his fists or anxiously ruffling up his hair. “Okay. I’ll call Stan when I hang up.”

“Thank you,” Heidi says, hoping her voice conveys all her gratitude. “I really miss you right now.”

“I really miss you most of the time. The rest of the time I’m sleep, and you’re there.”

Heidi smiles. “Only five weeks til Thanksgiving. You’re still going to come back for it, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. I’ve gotten all the time off approved.”

She talks to Kenny for ten or fifteen more minutes before her roommate gets back. They exchange a quick set of ‘goodbye’s and ‘I love you’s, then Heidi hangs up the phone. Her roommate, Rebecca, is shuffling through her backpack in a way that says she’s clearly trying not to eavesdrop on their conversation. Heidi tosses the phone back on her own desk and sinks down in her seat. “My ex-boyfriend’s mom just died.”

Rebecca looks up and frowns sympathetically. “That’s rough. That wasn’t him on the phone, right?”

“No, that was Kenny.”

She nods. “Sounded like it.”

“Would you mind if I had the room to call a friend now?”

“Of course!” Rebecca is already shoving everything she could possibly need into her backpack. “I’ll be at the front tables. Come find me if you need someone, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you.”

Rebecca kisses her forehead and says, “We’ll get wasted tonight.”

“Yes, please.”

Rebecca leaves with a half-zipped backpack, clutching her laptop and two textbooks to her chest, and stumbles out in an awkward, hunched-over position so that nothing falls. Heidi watches her leave gratefully then pulls out her laptop to FaceTime with Wendy.

Wendy is outside somewhere, probably sitting on the quad where she claims to spend the majority of her time, and Heidi can hear people chattering around her as she flashes Heidi a dazzling smile and says, “Hey, babe, what’s up? Haven’t heard from you in a minute!”

“Yeah, you look amazing! Brown is clearly suiting you.”

Wendy beams at the camera. “I love it here. Are you enjoying Wash U?”

“It’s pretty great. I miss everyone a lot, but.”

“Right, right. I miss everyone a lot, too,” Wendy says knowingly. “Usually right after I’ve just ended a call with Stan.”

“How’s long distance working for you too?”

Wendy shrugs and grins. “Pretty good, honestly. We’re both really busy, so I don’t think we would’ve had time for an on-campus relationship anyway, but we talk a couple times a week. Everyone made it seem like we’d break up as soon as we set foot on campus.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Everyone gets the same look of comprehension in their eyes whenever Heidi tells someone she’s in a long-distance relationship, that sort of “tell me in a couple months, and maybe I’ll believe you” look. “I actually called you for a kind of important reason. Could you possibly go anywhere private for a couple minutes?”

Wendy looks around. “Oh, yeah, totally,” she says. The camera goes shaky for a few seconds as she climbs to her feet and walks off somewhere, but she just sits back down in the grass a few feet away from her group of friends. “What’s going on, Heidi? You and Kenny are okay, right?”

“Yeah, of course. We’re great. It’s just that, um, Liane Cartman sort of, uh, passed away last night, I guess?” Heidi can’t believe how awkward she sounds just saying the words out loud. Wendy’s scrutinizing gaze immediately softens, and her mouth parts slightly in surprise.

“Oh, my gosh. That’s horrible. How is Eric doing?”

“I actually haven’t spoken to him yet, but the funeral is in two days, and I’m going to fly back for that.”

Wendy nods quickly. “I’ll book a ticket tonight.”

“Thank you,” Heidi says in relief. “That would really mean a lot.”

Wendy smiles. “I’m not doing it for you, Heidi. Cartman may have his problems, but he’s one of us. We support our own.”

“Yeah, I guess I just thought that…”

“Heidi, I’m going to cut you off there, because anything you thought is not giving me nearly enough credit. I’ve known Eric Cartman my entire life, and his one immediate family member just died. If there ever was a moment in which pettiness is unacceptable, it’s this one. Plus, Eric and I are kind of friends. We ended the year on good terms.”

Wendy really was a queen among women, and Heidi feels her heart tighten with love for her friend. “That’s really, really good to hear.”

“Give us some credit. I’ll tell Stan to book a flight, too.”

“Kenny’s already calling him.”

Wendy cracks a grin and says, “I’ll make sure he listens.”

“Thanks, b.”

“Literally no problem whatsoever,” Wendy assures her. “So I’ll be seeing you in a couple days, right?”

“I’m flying in tomorrow. I want to see if he needs anything before the funeral.”

Wendy nods. “Hate to say that I’m excited, but it will be good to see you guys again.”

“What better excuse to fuck your boyfriend?”

“Alright, I think you’re giving me the exact right amount of credit,” Wendy admits. “But I will see you there.”

“See you soon,” Heidi says, already much happier than she was when she ended the call with her parents. “Text me when you land.”

“Will do,” Wendy says easily. “Take care of yourself.”

She hangs up, and Heidi takes a deep, shuddering breath. Tomorrow night, she’s going to be on the doorstep of Eric Cartman’s empty home, but today, she can just get drunk with her hallmates and forget that anything bad ever happens anywhere.

The time goes by fast, and before she realizes that it’s time, the alarm on her phone breaks through her semi-delirious sleep. She’s hungover and grumpy for the entirety of her flight to South Park, but she manages to get an hour of sleep on the plane and isn’t a total nightmare when her mom picks her up from the airport.

She swings by her house for only a few seconds to lug her suitcase up the stairs and search around in her closet for a conservative black dress. For some reason, she feels like it’s gotten a lot of use, even though it’s only for funerals, and she hasn’t known anyone who’s died in years and years. She hangs it up on the door to her closet where it can’t be ignored and grabs a coat for her walk to Eric’s house.

She knocks twice and rings the doorbell, but there’s no noise on the other side of the door. Heidi tests the nob, and sure enough, the door is unlocked. She walks inside and calls, “Eric?” nervously into the darkness, but no one responds.

Heidi is baffled. Did he not come home for the funeral tomorrow? Is he coming home tomorrow? Where would Eric Cartman possibly be other than his home? She runs through all the options in her head and decides, for lack of a better lead, to take a walk to Stark’s Pond.

He isn’t there, and Heidi is totally confused. It’s not like he could be at a friend’s house. Butters is getting back later tonight, but she finds it hard to believe that the two of them would hang out one-on-one, and Stan isn’t coming back until the day of the funeral.

Praying that she’s wrong, she talks the long route home, passing slowly by Kyle’s house for any sign of activity inside. The TV is on in their front room, and Heidi decides that she can risk one awkward conversation with the lady that she used to call “mom” if it means that she can find Eric.

She knocks on the door a few times and waits patiently until a sleepy-eyed Ike opens the door.

“What’s up, bro?” He asks welcomingly, stepping back and allowing her to come inside. “We were just playing video games.”

He leads her into the living room, where Eric is posted up on the couch, staring at the frozen screen of their game. His eyes are also red and half-shut, and Heidi realizes that they’re both probably incredibly stoned. Or they’ve been crying their feelings out, but there’s a 100% chance that they’re just stoned.

“Hey, Eric. Didn’t expect you to be here,” she says softly, sitting down on the chair closest to his couch. “How are you doing?”

He looks her over expressionlessly. “I’m great. You here for the funeral?”

“It’s gonna be lit,” Ike says flippantly.

She really hadn’t expected Eric to be at Kyle’s house, but she’s even more surprised to find out that he’s there to hang out with his little brother. She vaguely remembers Kyle bitching about their friendship, but it’s buried in a pile of memories of Kyle bitching about various things that Eric does.

“Is Kyle here?”

Eric looks at Ike warningly, and Ike shakes his head. “I’m going to tell him after the funeral. He’s in exams and doesn’t need to worry about stuff that doesn’t really include him anyway.”

Eric nods like this is a satisfactory answer.

Heidi doesn’t want to burst their bubble by telling them that Kenny might have already told Kyle what happened, so she just stays silent and watches them play game after game of Super Smash Bros. Eventually, it gets pretty late, and she still hasn’t had a personal conversation with Eric.

She yawns loudly and announces that she might walk home soon, shooting Eric a look that explicitly states that she expects him to offer to walk her home.

“I’m sleeping here tonight,” he says noncommittally.

Ike, however, jumps up from his seat. “I could stretch my legs. I’ll walk you home, Heidi.”

“Wouldn’t want her to get jumped in the twenty feet to her house,” Eric says, and Heidi pouts a little.

Ike is already pulling on a coat and her motions Heidi to follow him out with surprising urgency. Her house really is only a few houses down on an isolated, residential block, but her parents were very strict about being outside by herself, and thoughts of death are hanging at the forefront of her brain at the moment.

“So, Kyle is coming,” Ike says as soon as the door shuts behind her. “I’m hoping he’ll just stay quiet, sit there for the funeral, and leave immediately afterwards, so I don’t want to stress Cartman out, but fuck, dude. I couldn’t convince him that it’d be better if he stayed there, and I don’t want to lie to Cartman and have this be some big, shitty surprise for him at his mom’s funeral. I really wish that Kyle could just mind his own fucking business.”

“He thinks this is his business.”

“Exactly.”

Heidi sighs heavily. “You should probably tell Eric. If he gets mad at you, he’ll just push away one of his last friends.”

“The kid’s doing great at Berklee,” Ike says like he’s actually surprised by Heidi’s statement. “I think a couple of his friends are actually getting in tomorrow for the funeral.”

“Really?” Heidi asks, delighted. “I had no idea.”

Ike rolls his eyes. “You really thought he was going to get to an entirely new place and start off with ‘so here’s a list of all the minorities I hate’?”

“No, I thought it would be more like, ‘here’s a list of all the people I killed as a preteen.’”

Ike waves a hand in the air. “He’s killed so few people. That’s not really Cartman’s M.O.”

“’So few,’” Heidi repeats, and snorts.

Ike shrugs. “Believe it or not, but the kid’s learned how to make a good first impression at this point. I sort of trust him to keep it up, honestly. I get how all your friends hate him, but I personally am going to trust him to take advantage of his second chance. How ‘bout you?”

“I trust him, too.”

They slow down in front of Heidi’s house, standing in front of the driveway with their hands tucked in their pockets and faces turned away from the wind.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Ike says finally, and Heidi nods.

“See you tomorrow.”

He hugs her quickly and steps back, watching her walk down the driveway and enter her house. Inside, Heidi feels warm and safe until she remembers that Eric will never again get to walk into his family home and feel warm and safe. Her heart hurts during her entire nighttime routine, and she falls asleep wondering how she can possibly understand exactly what it feels like to be Eric right now.

The morning of the funeral passes in the surreal blur. She eats a breakfast that her mom prepared, thanks both her parents a million times and hopes they understand what she really means, showers, and puts on her black dress and ballet flats. There’s a text from Wendy on her phone when she checks it with the name of a diner in town, and she heads there to meet up before heading to the church.

Wendy, Stan, and Butters are all sitting quietly in a booth, all of them nursing black coffees. Wendy gestures to a waiter to bring Heidi a mug, and Heidi sits down in the seat next to Butters.

Wendy reaches over the tabletop to clasp her wrist and smile. “It’s great to see you.”

“You, too. All of you guys.”

Stan nods at her, and Butters waves. “Thanks for tellin’ me about the funeral, Heidi! I sure would’ve felt like a terrible friend if I’d missed it. Y’know Eric and I were actually best friends in elementary school? He never told nobody, but we were super close! Then he got pussy whipped, and I dumped him, but it was a beautiful couple of years.”

Heidi nods slowly, wondering if Butters even remembers that she’s the pussy who whipped him. “I’m sure he’ll be touched.”

“I just want him to know that he’s always got a friend in me!”

“That’s really sweet, Butters,” Wendy says with some finality in her tone. “Drink up, Heidi. We’ve got to head over by 10.”

Stan checks his watch. “I don’t think Kyle even gets into town til 9:45.”

“Oh, no, Kyle might miss the funeral?” Wendy asks in a deadpan. “How will the show go on?”

“Don’t be mean. He’s not going to do anything inappropriate.”

Wendy rolls her eyes but stays silent, and Heidi thinks that they perfectly understand each other in that moment.

Butters chatters inanely for the rest of the meal, the only one of them who doesn’t seem to have a heavy weight pressing down on their shoulders. Wendy pays for everyone at the end, and they climb into Stan’s car to drive to the funeral.

Everyone is wearing a lot of black inside, and the South Park Elementary choir is singing Eleanor Rigby at the front of the church. They take seats near the back and sit during Kidz Bop renditions of Fool on the Hill and Baby’s in Black. She can see the back of Eric’s head in the first aisle, sitting between two sets of white hair that must be his maternal grandparents. The first few aisles are all filled with people who look remarkably similar to Eric and are talking in the same loud, obnoxious voice, even indoors at a funeral.

Two boys and a girl stop in front of their pew, and the girl steps forward to address them. “Hey! I’m Leslie, and these are Damien and Mark. You guys are Eric’s high school friends, right?”

The term “high school friend” sends Heidi reeling, but luckily Wendy is there to handle the interaction, and she stands up immediately to shake hands with each one of them, an action that Stan, Butters, and Heidi all reluctantly repeat.

“Wendy Testaburger. It’s great to meet you guys.”

She stops in front of Damien and says, “You look kind of familiar.”

“Soon all mortals will know my name,” Damien says in a high-pitched voice, and Wendy exchanges an incredulous look with Stan over her shoulder. Of course these are the types of people that Eric would find at school.

Mark claps his shoulder. “Tone down the Antichrist stuff, Dame. You’ve just met them.”

Leslie smiles and says, “We’re not as weird as we seem.”

“Neither are we,” Stan blurts out, and Wendy elbows him.

“We’re really glad you guys could come,” Wendy tells them.

“Yes, you’re hosting a wonderful funeral,” Leslie says mockingly. “Thank you so much for welcoming us.”

She slides into the pew in front of them, and Damien and Mark follow. Only Mark turns around in his seat to keep talking to Wendy, and they have a polite exchange about Berklee and Brown.

Heidi nudges Stan. “These kids are mean.”

“These kids are Eric Cartman’s friends,” Stan says, like that should be enough of an answer. It is.

Kyle hasn’t arrived by the time that the priest stands up to perform his sermon, and Heidi lets herself hope that his plane got in too late to make the funeral.

She bawls during the entire sermon, not really listening to the actual content, instead opting to stare directly at Eric’s hunched spine. She barely hears the door to the chapel creek open, and someone slips quietly inside. She doesn’t even think to look up until Stan nudges her to scoot in. At the end of the pew, a frazzled Kyle Broflovski is standing there in a black suit with mussed up hair. He’s wearing a black button-down and black tie under his blazer like Silvio Berlusconi, but she hates to admit that the look sort of works on him. Maybe he changed up his look when he got to college, something to better advertise what a total douche he is. Heidi doesn’t even notice Ike behind him, slinking into the row with the Berklee kids.

Kyle barely looks at any of them, craning his neck to look around the church for Eric. Wendy taps him and nods towards the front where he’s sitting, and Kyle’s eyes narrow as he zeroes in on him.

He sits down next to Wendy, and Stan leans past her to gesture at the group of Berklee kids sitting in front of them and whisper something that must be mean and xenophobic. Kyle frowns at them but doesn’t respond, and Heidi quickly focuses back on the sermon.

Heidi’s barely absorbing any of the words that are causing the tears to spill out of her eyes until she hears the preacher introduce a eulogy from Liane’s son, Eric. Heidi alone starts clapping, but Stan puts a soothing hand over hers to stop her.

Eric looks around for a few seconds before he starts speaking, but his gaze doesn’t linger anywhere in particular. It even skims over where she and Kyle are sitting, too quickly to lock eyes with either of them. After a brief pause in which he stares down at the blank podium, Eric inhales deeply and begins.

“My first memory is of my mom. Obviously. We were in the car. I was in the front seat, even though I was definitely way too young. Still huge, anyway. Nothing extraordinary happened. We just drove. I think she sang a bit. There was wind, and the mirror was reflecting a lot of trees. Some houses. I think at one point we hit a dog.” There is some whispering, and Eric says, “Just making sure you all were listening. There was no dog.”

Kyle chuckles, and Wendy prods at him sternly.

“That was my first memory, and I’m sure it’s blended together with a million of the same memories, but I still think about it every time I get in a fucking car.”

“No one really got our deal growing up. I spent at least three years of my life thinking my mom was my dad, and no one corrected me. I think that people used to blame her for the way I was, because that’s what’s cool nowadays, right? Blaming your parents for your own failures? My mom showed me love and kindness. She was so kind to everyone and everything. I used to try to beat up our cat, and she’d be like, ‘No, Eric. Don’t do that.’”

Kyle coughs. Heidi glares at him, daring it to be a laugh, but he just stares straight at Eric. 

“Those were the only times when I felt bad, actually. When people tried to say my reactions were the result of her failure. Don’t get me wrong. I was stoked at first. It seemed like a guilt-free way to do whatever I wanted, but it turns out that the only thing that made me guilty was people taking a look at me and saying, ‘Well, that’s what happens when you let a crack whore raise a kid.’ She was an amazing mother, and an amazing person. She never wanted anyone to be hurt. Everything she did was to support me. Or, before I was born, to support her crack addiction, but she quit as soon as she found out she was pregnant. Because that’s the kind of mess she was. She always saw motherhood as so much bigger than herself.

“It’s big shoes to fill, to carry on her legacy. Liane was a fixture of this town. Everyone loved her. Women whose husbands she slept with loved her. Liane had a huge heart, and she gave all of it to me.” He pauses and takes a shaky breath; Heidi can’t quite tell if it’s calculated or not. “I never thanked her. At least, not enough. She gave me everything. She accepted me no matter what I did, and I completely took that for granted. The world just lost a huge source of unconditional love, and it’s on all of us to keep that going. Thank your parents.”

Eric stares at the casket for a long time before he says, “Ashes to ashes,” and steps down from the podium.

The preacher invites up other family members to speak. First, his grandmother goes up and talks about Liane as a young girl. Her siblings all share stories that echo Eric’s sentiments of what a lovely, warm woman she was. The floor is opened up for friends to share words, and Sharon Marsh gives a tearful talk about everything she offered the town. It’s the first time Heidi sees Stan and Wendy start to tear up, and she sees Wendy squeeze Stan’s hand tightly. A few more townspeople speak, mostly men, and then there’s a lull.

Heidi’s not totally sure what she’s afraid of when she glances over at Kyle, who is staring at the podium stonily, hands clenched in fists. She silently begs him not to get up, but Kyle can never resist the chance to give a speech, and he’s already standing up before she thinks to physically hold him into his seat.

Wendy slumps down in resignation, and Stan grabs his wrist for a second to hiss, “Just make sure you talk about the mom, Kyle.”

He walks slowly up to the front of the church, and Heidi watches nervously as heads turn around to watch his approach. She sees Eric turn but can’t make out his facial expression from her angle.

He looks totally at home behind the podium, and Heidi is a little jealous of his confidence in public speaking before she realizes that it’s totally inappropriate that he’s doing this. Kyle looks around the room for a few seconds, locking gazes with someone in the front row who she assumes must be Eric. His jaw clenches, and he looks back at the rest of the crowd.

“Liane always had the best snacks,” Kyle says, and Stan moans brokenly from his seat in the back.

“She was always the best host. She welcomed all of us into her house immediately, even though I know she didn’t really like Jews, and she made sure that we always had the best time possible when we came over.”

“She let Jews in the house?” A relative grunts in the front row, and another one asks, “Is this boy Jewish?”

“I am,” Kyle confirms. “I didn’t see her as much as we got older, but she never stopped being friendly and warm. She even sent me a Facebook message on my birthday every year, and I don’t have my birthday listed on Facebook.

“I know that we all see our parents less and less as we get older. When we’re young, they’re our whole world. Then you enter the real world and realize it never really gets better than being young and safe and with your mom. The real world was never better than sitting on the Cartmans’ couch, stuffing our faces with Liane’s amazing cooking and playing video games until we had to get off the TV so that she could watch The View.

“Even when we leave our familial sanctuary, the love never goes away.” Kyle’s eyes flick back towards Eric, and they linger there for enough time that the rest of the audience begins to stir. “Loving someone is when you’re always a little sadder when they’re not around. You may not quite even realize exactly why you’re sad until you’re back with them, and that heaviness lifts without you even knowing it had been there. Losing a parent – losing anyone, really – is when you become aware of that weight. Once you realize it’s there, it becomes so much heavier than you could have ever imagined.

“I extend my sincerest condolences to the Cartman family and everyone else who was touched by Liane in their lifetime. It’s a testament to her undying kindness how many of you made it here today. With such a wonderful community, we can begin to fill the whole that she’s left in the world, but it will never be full. Liane was here, and she made the world a little brighter for all of us, and now she’s gone.

“Eric was right that she’s left big shoes to fill. This is an opportunity for all of us to take a lesson from her. Liane loved without ever expecting something back. She didn’t need a reward because she just loved. She couldn’t hide something like that. I’ve learned something important today, that we should take her death as a wakeup call to all of us. Love without expectations. Love unconditionally. Be the beacon of warmth in the world that Liane was, and maybe your funeral will have as many guests at is as hers does.”

Kyle sucks in a deep breath, and Heidi is sure that he’s finished, but he says, “I’d like to close with a song.”

“Fuck,” Stan whispers, and Wendy nods in horror.

In front of them, Leslie whispers something to Damien that has them both laughing, and Mark asks, a little too loudly, “Wait, this is Kyle?”

“I never meant to be so bad to you,” Kyle begins in a wavering voice, and Stan leans over to hide his head in between his legs while Wendy rubs his back comfortingly. “One thing I said that I would never do. A look from you, and I would fall from grace, and that would wipe the smile right from my face.

“It was the heat of the moment, telling me what your heart meant. The heat of the moment shone in your eyes.” It feels like it’s been forever since this song began, one verse and one chorus in, but Kyle keeps going, and Heidi feels her stomach churn with secondhand embarrassment.

“Do you remember when we used to dance? And incident arose from circumstance? One thing led to another, we were young. And we would scream together songs unsung.”

Heidi can’t take her eyes away from this train wreck, even as the choir teacher ushers the South Park Elementary choir back to their feet to sing backup. One little boy protests loudly, “But I don’t know this song!”, and the teacher snaps, “Feel it in your heart!”

“It was the heat of the moment, telling me what your heart meant. The heat of the moment shone in your eyes.”

“And now you find yourself in eighty two. The disco hot spots hold no charm for you. You can’t concern yourself with bigger things. You catch the pearl and ride the dragon’s wings. ‘Cause it’s the heat of the moment, heat of the moment, heat of the moment shone in your eyes.”

Heidi dares to glance around at her classmates. Butters is curled up in a little ball with his eyes hidden behind his hands. Stan is still staring between his legs like he’s about to vomit, and Wendy’s hand has stopped moving on his back. Heidi gives her a plaintive look, and Wendy nods like she understands, but then she stands up so she must not actually.

“And when your looks are gone and you’re alone,” Wendy sings, and Kyle looks up at her in surprise. “How many nights you sit beside the phone?”

A heavyset relative in the second row follows her up and sings, “What were the things you wanted for yourself?”

“Teenage ambitions you’ll remember well.”

Stan has pulled his head back up and is gaping around at the crowd as more and more of the audience stands up for the final choruses, stomping and clapping their hands at the appropriate times. Butters hops up quickly after, and Stan pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters, “Fucking Kyle,” before he follows him up.

Not one to be left out, Heidi is up on her feet for the last “heat of the moment, heat of the moment, heat of the moment.”

Kyle raises a hand to bid adieu to the crowd, and people actually begin to applaud. Heidi notes the few people who chose not to stand up – exclusively Eric and his friends from Berklee, who are whispering about what the hell this song is and why it could possibly relate to Liane’s funeral.

No one tries to follow his speech. The priest gets up to thank Kyle and say his closing remarks as Kyle walks back down the aisle to his seat. He and Wendy clutch hands as he’s sitting down, and Stan says, in a dead voice, “Congratulations. That wasn’t nearly as humiliating as it could have been.”

“Great response, I think,” Kyle says airily.

“Bet Cartman is pissed.”

“Oh, I saw his face.”

“And?”

“Yup. A thousand times yup.”

They linger outside the church with Mark, Damien, and Leslie, all of whom clearly think Kyle is the biggest nutcase they’ve ever met. Mark asks for the name of the song to save on Spotify, and Kyle just says, “I think it’s pretty clear what the name was.”

Finally, Eric trickles out in a swarm of relatives, who point towards Kyle like he’s a circus spectacle. Eric doesn’t say any goodbyes, just walks straight over to them and gives Kyle a hard push.

“What the fuck was that about?”

“I was eulogizing,” Kyle says, catching himself as he stumbles backwards. “I thought group singalongs were your thing.”

“No one asked you to give a eulogy at my mom’s fucking funeral, Kyle! Are you fucking insane? Not the time or the place!”

“I thought it was nice,” Wendy says softly, and they both glare at her.

“Do not get involved,” Eric snaps.

“It was respectful!” Wendy protests, but Stan puts a hand on her arm, and she falls silent, still looking sulky.

“You had absolutely no right to do that,” Eric hisses, closing in on Kyle and pushing again.

Kyle holds his hands up in a ‘no conflict’ gesture. “Well, it’s been done, Cartman. Deal with it.”

“I literally don’t have anything to say. You shouldn’t have been here, and you need to go.”

“Dude, like I was going to not come to your mom’s funeral. What the fuck?”

“Why, Kyle? Why would you possibly feel the need to come to my mom’s funeral?”

“For the same reason that Stan, Wendy, and Butters are here!”

“They’re all here because they were invited!”

“You should have invited me, too,” Kyle says softly. “You know I would have come.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t invite you!”

“Cartman, your mom died. There was never a chance that I didn’t come to the funeral. I even sat in the emergency exit row on the plane, and you know people get sucked out of those sometimes, right?”

“Oh, thank you for risking your life for me, Kyle. That means so much,” Eric says in a voice thick with sarcasm. “Ready to crawl back into the hole you crawled out from?”

Kyle rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “I was hoping you and I could get lunch or something, actually.”

Eric rolls his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“This isn’t better for me than it is for you, dude. Trust me.”

“You’re here because you wanted to be here, Kyle! I actually cannot comprehend why that possibly would be, but I assume it’s just because you literally cannot pass up an opportunity to give a speech. Like, if a podium was there, and Kyle Broflovski didn’t speak at it, was it ever actually there? I don’t know!”

“Shut the fuck up, Cartman. I’m here because your mom died, and I care about you. I’m sorry that I tried to speak, but were you going to listen to or talk to me otherwise?”

Eric is silent, so Kyle presses forward. “You were my best friend, dude. I was at your house all the fucking time.”

“Oh, of course,” Eric says, looking angrier than ever before. “You’re here because we used to be best friends. That makes total sense.”

“I mean, like,” Kyle looks around the group of South Park and Berklee kids awkwardly. “I could say more if we got lunch.”

“Just say it now. I don’t really have time for you to humiliate both me and yourself in private. My whole fucking family is here.”

“Well, I kind of said it in the speech.”

“Oh, yeah? You gonna be a beacon of love for the world now?”

“Come on.”

“No, Kyle, what did you say in the speech? I couldn’t really make it out through all the bullshit you were spouting.”

Kyle glares around at all the onlookers, and the South Park kids hide their eyes respectfully, but Eric’s friends continue to watch like this is the most interesting thing they’ve ever seen. “I was saying that I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t being honest with either of us because I thought that things could always stay the same, but they can’t. I’m sad when you’re not there – sad and angry – and it’s not going away like I expected it to. I’m mad at myself for getting you back and then letting it end even worse than it did last time. I fucked up bad, and you’re right. It was my fault. I couldn’t just expect you to never change; that wasn’t fair, and I couldn’t expect us to never change. And then we did change, and it was really good, and I blew it because… I don’t know. I didn’t really believe it was real? It was sort of a fantasy, but it was real, and I wish I’d understood that.”

Heidi dares to glance upwards. She can see Kyle’s chest heaving from mental exertion, and Eric is stock still, jaw set and fists clenched.

“Okay, you fucked up. Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Cartman, are you listening to me? I don’t want you not to be in my life. It makes me feel… I don’t know. I want to vomit right now.”

“How does it make you feel?” Eric asks, seemingly out of genuine curiosity.

“It makes me feel like I lost an opportunity that I hadn’t even known I’d been wanting since fourth grade. And a lot of opportunities that I’d never even considered wanting. And I just… I don’t know, dude. I just don’t want you to leave again.”

Eric is quiet for a long time, and Heidi is about to pull the rest of them away to let this be handled in private, but then he says, “I won’t if you don’t,” in a low voice, and Kyle nods.

They look back at the rest of the group, and Stan says, “Are you guys not going to kiss? I promise I won’t vomit.”

Kyle and Eric exchange a long look.

“We’re not your show monkeys,” Eric says finally.

“Yeah, fuck you, Stan.”

“Wendy and I will do it if you two do!”

“Stan,” Wendy scolds.

“Neither of us want that,” Kyle says, glancing at Eric for confirmation, who nods in agreement.

“That’s even more reason not to kiss.”

Leslie raises a hand. “I want to see, too.”

“Has Eric been gay this whole time?” Mark asks Damien, who nods knowingly.

Eric and Kyle look at each other for a long time, having one of those conversations with their eyes that Heidi knows well from her time with Kenny, then Eric grabs Kyle, tips him back like he’s about to kiss him like a swooning damsel, and drops him on the ground.

“Let’s go to Shakey’s.”